Court interpreting ethics and standards of practice
What this domain tests
This domain tests the interpreter's conduct under the NAJIT Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibilities and state court interpreter codes. Questions ask what to do when accuracy, confidentiality, role boundaries, and courtroom relationships collide.
Core duties
- Accuracy and completeness: render the register, hedges, profanity, hesitations, and errors of the speaker; do not improve, soften, summarize, or explain. Correct your own material errors immediately and on the record.
- Confidentiality: do not disclose information from proceedings, attorney-client meetings, or grand jury; do not discuss cases on social media or with family. Confidentiality survives the assignment.
- Impartiality and conflicts: disclose any relationship with parties, counsel, witnesses, or victims. Do not accept an assignment where you are a witness, have a financial interest, or have formed an opinion.
- Role boundaries: interpret only; do not give legal advice, express opinions, answer questions put to a witness, or hold ex parte conversations. Ask for clarification, repetition, or a break when needed.
- Courtroom protocol: take the oath, pre-conference with counsel when appropriate, sit where you can hear, interpret everything said in your presence that is intended for the record, and do not interrupt except to correct an error or flag a condition that prevents accuracy.
Worked example
Defense counsel whispers, 'Before we start, do you think she's lying?' The interpreter should not answer the question or offer an assessment. The correct response is brief and role-based: 'I can't offer an opinion; my role is to interpret. If you want to ask her a question, I'll interpret it.' The interpreter then notes the request if the jurisdiction requires disclosure and continues. Giving an opinion would compromise impartiality and could create a conflict requiring withdrawal.
Traps
Answering a witness's 'What should I say?' with advice; omitting profanity or slang to protect the record; changing 'I don't remember' to 'I don't know'; discussing a case with a friend; failing to disclose that the victim is a neighbor; 'clarifying' a confusing answer instead of interpreting it; and correcting an error silently rather than on the record.